Tuesday, September 30, 2014

“Let me not pray to be sheltered
from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the
stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.”

Rabindranath Tagore

There is much about Obama’s
leadership or lack thereof that I remain critical of; by no means am I a fan.
In fact, in my eyes he has thus far failed the test of leadership, feeling more
like an erudite college professor and less like leader of the Western world.
Given his predecessor's shoot from the hip mentality and the unmitigated
disasters that followed, it was clear when Obama took office that America’s moral
high ground, diplomatic clout and financial muscle were all in shreds. It was
not so much that America was no longer a global superpower, but that the world had changed dramatically while
America seemed to have moved backwards. America seemed to have lost its way
with two messy long wars and the deepest financial crisis since the Great
Depression. She felt rudderless, leaderless and isolated on the world stage. By
this time it was also clear that the overthrow of Saddam had no relevance in
fighting the war on terrorism and had made the world a less safe place.
However, one thing Bush was right about is that there was a global war on
terrorism; and every nation needed to get involved. But Bush was incapable of
leading the world and bringing them on board to fight this common threat,
instead choosing to distract and further divide the world with an unnecessary
war and with his 'my way or the highway' attitude.

Obama has been called an apologist because after he was elected he chose to
show a softer and more cerebral side of American foreign policy. Being the only
President who has actually lived abroad, perhaps he uniquely understood that
the need of the hour was to apologize for America’s many misguided foreign
policy endeavors, especially in the Muslim world. However, what he did not seem
to grasp is that apologies alone would not rid us of the real evil we are
facing. In trying to contrast his legacy from his war-mongering predecessor, he
also went too far in the other direction,
choosing to lead from the back. He failed to understand that America still
needs to lead, and that pushing allies to take the lead is not the same thing.
It has taken him a while to understand that you cannot right the wrongs of the
past; you can only chart a course for the future that avoids the same failed
policies and pitfalls. So instead of a wiser, nobler and morally stronger
America he has until now offered an awkward, embarrassed and trepidatious
America. Syria is a case in point where, while right to not intervene at the outset
and not unilaterally, he should have acted once Assad crossed his own “red
line.” America setting an ultimatum and then failing to act sets a very
dangerous precedent.

It is the rapid rise of ISIL that
has finally woken Obama up to the fact that war, while still a last resort, is
going to be necessary. I believe he will not make the same mistakes that Bush
did in America’s last global war on terror. Obama understands two things that
his predecessor was unable to grasp. First, in the 21st century
America is no longer the unequivocal superpower with the economic might it once
had, to go it alone, and expect the rest of the world to fall in line based on
diplomatic pressure or threats to cut US aid. Today there are many nations who
can play benefactor and use their own cheque books to help countries resist US
will. Second, he understands that no country can bestow democracy upon another,
and especially not through a military invasion. The people of that country must
be willing to fight and die for their freedom, much like they did in India,
South Africa and will in Tunisia and Egypt in the years to come. All American
military intervention can achieve, like it did in Iraq, is to put a temporary
Band-Aid on a dangerous power vacuum that it leaves behind. To this end, he is
aware that almost all the countries in the Middle East are run by dictators
(many supported, armed and propped up by America). These countries have no
civil institutions, public infrastructure or independent judiciaries that are
the necessary bedrocks of democracy and take generations to build.

Even today Egypt, Saudi Arabia and
Pakistan are the largest financiers (some state funded but mostly by private
individuals and religious institutions) and potent breeding ground for
terrorists. The fact is that all these countries have brutal and oppressive
regimes with no press, religious or personal freedoms. In all three countries,
successive US administrations have supported dictators, giving them carte
blanche and billions in military aid. So it is not hard to imagine why the
average person on the street does not feel thankful to the American people for
their generosity – and is it any wonder that they produce the largest number of
terrorist recruits? Obama is acutely aware that this type of US intervention,
particularly in the Arab and Muslim world, has failed miserably. So instead of
choosing to apply the definition of insanity, he decided to stay on the
sidelines in Egypt, Syria and most of the other North African internal
conflicts. If Obama attacked Syria with the aim of removing Assad (not the same
as punishing him for crossing the red line) we would likely have ended up with
a messier Iraq, with the same sectarian strife, or at best an American puppet
administration which would have been more hated than Assad.

Obama’s strategy to use US military
support as a bargaining tool to get rid of Nouri Al-Maliki, and replace him
with a unity government in Iraq, was absolutely correct. Whether this new government will succeed
or not is hard to say, but it
certainly has a much greater chance based purely on the proportional
representation it now has from all three sects. More importantly, by doing this
Obama took away the most potent recruiting tool ISIS had - discontent Iraqi Sunnis. Al-Maliki had been systematically removing
Sunni’s and replacing them with incompetent cronies in an effort to create a
Shiite dominated Iraq. Now, with US air and
military support, the new unity government has actually re-enlisted the same
disillusioned army men who ran at the first sign of trouble from Sunni
dominated Mosul, and a strong Kurd army is fighting to save a unified Iraq and
not just defending Kurdish territory.

So while there is no doubt Obama
badly fumbled and delayed in leading this fight, now that he is in it, he has also
shown a shrewd understanding of the region by getting support of the most
important allies he needs to fight this war. The US-led coalition launched with
active participation from the militaries of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE and
Bahrain, as well as publicly stated support from the governments in Oman,
Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon and Qatar. So far the United Kingdom, France,
Netherlands and Belgium have also contributed fighter jets and other allies are
lining up to offer everything from training to equipment. In contrast, when
Bush and Cheney rushed into Iraq there was a sum total of four countries in
their collation that had active military involvement. The US with 148,000 and
the UK with 45,000 troops provided the lion’s share. Australia contributed
2,000 and Poland 194 soldiers (Source: Wikipedia).
Not a single Arab nation sent troops and no other major European or Asian power
was involved. In fact, America's oldest allies like France, Germany, and New
Zealand were strongly opposed to the Iraq invasion.

This is the fundamental difference
in Obama’s global war on terror. Obama understands not only that America must
lead this fight, but also that unless America can get the Arab and Muslim world
to recognise the threat posed by this cancer and actively participate in it we
cannot win this war. The only question that remains is whether Obama will have
the resolve to send in US and Arab ground troops that will no doubt be needed
to finally defeat this enemy and finish the military aspect of this war.